Neighbors Along the Riverbed Episode 11: Conclusion

Neighbors Along the Riverbed Episode 11: Conclusion

What are some ways to engage salmon conservation and recovery going forward? Bring awareness of the urban waterways that connect the spawning habitat inland with the ocean?

Over the dozens of conversations I’ve had, those I’ve included here and those I have not, there were so many ideas to engage salmon conservation and habitat restoration in the urban areas that people are working from. The first and the way that is used for Neighbors Along the Riverbed is creating and distributing information in a way that engages community. Making art–everything from a podcast to drawings to poetry helps.

In terms of the tangible things we might advocate for, just a few of the ideas were to rehire environmental staff in municipal governments, to plant species that remove pollutants along busy roadways, develop creekways and other aboveground waterways that aren’t channelized, and to generally hold governments accountable to the environmental components of their plans.

You can also talk to people and help to identify these gaps in knowledge, have conversations and share what you know with your neighbors about native salmonids that are endangered and threatened in your area. Is there salmon in your local waterways and if not, where would they be as they moved through our communities where they belong? Where are your local creeks and culverts and other waterways? How are they being taken care of? And who is engaged in this work already? As an example of how relative this can be, when I was in the bay area one of the biggest reason’s people didn’t want to participate in my project was because they felt they were not knowledgeable enough about endangered and threatened salmon, but in SoCal people didn’t even know they had salmon neighbors, so how could they participate?

There were many factors people mentioned which put barriers to how active they and their people are in conservation. Though I later researched to find that the community in Hayward around the aboveground portion of San Lorenzo Creek is designated as a “disadvantaged community” with senate bill 535 I could see the difference in neighborliness between it being a lower income community and the upper-middle class community of Fremont. Neighborliness is treated differently in these communities. For example in Fremont when I was waiting for Joe Sullivan in the public park next to Alameda Creek and someone told me to watch out for the homeless person who was just sitting there, chilling. In stark contrast, there is a very small area between a cluster of freeways in Hayward that provides access to San Lorenzo Creek and we said hi to all the neighbors, including those who were living in the flood channel.

This speaks to accessibility. It is not neighborly to view anyone as unwelcome in public space, and if the folks in this area have that attitude toward someone, how would that affect how welcome they feel to go up and see the creek? Or be in the environmental groups who have an existing relationship with the Parks District?

Some other points around accessibility include for governmental meetings to continue having zoom access, having gatherings that focus on conservation in the east bay area or offering free transportation to those that are in San Francisco, and sharing plain language summaries of official reports and media.

One of the other big themes was how hard it can be to engage in conservation work long-term, or do anything concrete about it at all. In what ways can we do this work that makes it easier? A great idea that one speaker articulated drew from Adrienne Marie Brown’s book Pleasure Activism. It’s to hold the joy of helping our neighbors, gathering together and eating food or making art or going to synagogue or church or mosque or having a skate sesh or whatever is joyous for you and yours. A few people said they like to pick up trash, whatever you like. In reframing what you already love to do you can make the hard and often long-term work of salmon conservation and habitat restoration into something pleasurable? Into something practical?

Beyond that, maybe you’re already an activist, or generally someone with things that you work to see improved in your community because you see how they put people at a disadvantage. Racism, classism, violence against queer and trans folks, gentrification, how does what you do already connect to those issues, compounding each other? How does salmon conservation connect to those issues? How does making sure that these seven species that may soon not exist connect to whatever you care about? Because I guarantee that it does. This means that we must build coalitions between the different interconnected things we are working toward and fighting for, removing the barriers in place which prevent communities from ALL thriving together.

It’s ok to keep it small, keep it local. The efforts that we put into helping endangered and threatened salmon neighbors on a local level effects our watersheds and oceans, and vice versa, it adds up for the health of our ecosystems. Everything counts.